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From: robinsmith59 at comcast.net <robinsmith59>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:58:49 -0500
Community is a theme in a huge number of children's books. The following are my three favorite young adult novels of this year that play with the theme:
I second Jeanne's comments about Paul Fleischman's Breakout, one of my favorite young adult novels of the year. I've always been struck by how difficult it is, when students ask what a book is about, to make some of the great books sound as good as they are. What do you say about Breakout? "It's about this girl who get stuck in a traffic jam...." And yet the novel says so much on so many levels. It's not just about being stuck on the freeway, it's about the "freeway of life" and the necessity of openly accepting "otherness" -- not just the other driver or other people, but
"Otherness. Things we have no control over, didn't ask for, don't deserve. History. Earthquakes. Cancer. Family. Traffic jams." It's the spirit of Whitman and the open road, but also of accepting those people around you and finding a new sense of community.
Another level of Breakout is art and the role of the artist in the community. There's a scene in the novel with an artist who's doing a work called "Wrong Fortune;" he's finding something fascinating in the traffic jam he's part of, offering a different way of seeing, even if not exactly appreciated at the time.
Tracy Mack's Birdland is another favorite of the year. Actually, along with Breakout, it's on my list of all-time favorites. This community is New York City, where Jed and Flyer are filming a documentary about their neighborhood -- the watertowers, drunks, drummers, dogwalkers, homeless people, friends, and neighbors. And, while defining his place in the world, Jed comes to terms with his brother's death. Like Breakout, it's a deeply philosophical and lyrically written work, tackling the big themes of life and death and family and community, and it has quite similar things to say about acceptance of things you can't control, also in the spirit of Whitman. Appropriate to the New York City community, the spirit of Langston Hughes and Charlie Parker is part of the mix.
A third young adult novel I really liked is Martha Brooks's True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. It has one of my favorite settings -- a diner. I love Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here and Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Cafe for the same reason. Diners. Those little communities within communities where people come together and the problems of the world are lived out, talked about, sometimes solved, sometimes not, and people leave, changed in one way or another or at least heartened by a good meal and a hot cup of coffee.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Sat 18 Oct 2003 04:58:49 PM CDT
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:58:49 -0500
Community is a theme in a huge number of children's books. The following are my three favorite young adult novels of this year that play with the theme:
I second Jeanne's comments about Paul Fleischman's Breakout, one of my favorite young adult novels of the year. I've always been struck by how difficult it is, when students ask what a book is about, to make some of the great books sound as good as they are. What do you say about Breakout? "It's about this girl who get stuck in a traffic jam...." And yet the novel says so much on so many levels. It's not just about being stuck on the freeway, it's about the "freeway of life" and the necessity of openly accepting "otherness" -- not just the other driver or other people, but
"Otherness. Things we have no control over, didn't ask for, don't deserve. History. Earthquakes. Cancer. Family. Traffic jams." It's the spirit of Whitman and the open road, but also of accepting those people around you and finding a new sense of community.
Another level of Breakout is art and the role of the artist in the community. There's a scene in the novel with an artist who's doing a work called "Wrong Fortune;" he's finding something fascinating in the traffic jam he's part of, offering a different way of seeing, even if not exactly appreciated at the time.
Tracy Mack's Birdland is another favorite of the year. Actually, along with Breakout, it's on my list of all-time favorites. This community is New York City, where Jed and Flyer are filming a documentary about their neighborhood -- the watertowers, drunks, drummers, dogwalkers, homeless people, friends, and neighbors. And, while defining his place in the world, Jed comes to terms with his brother's death. Like Breakout, it's a deeply philosophical and lyrically written work, tackling the big themes of life and death and family and community, and it has quite similar things to say about acceptance of things you can't control, also in the spirit of Whitman. Appropriate to the New York City community, the spirit of Langston Hughes and Charlie Parker is part of the mix.
A third young adult novel I really liked is Martha Brooks's True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. It has one of my favorite settings -- a diner. I love Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here and Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Cafe for the same reason. Diners. Those little communities within communities where people come together and the problems of the world are lived out, talked about, sometimes solved, sometimes not, and people leave, changed in one way or another or at least heartened by a good meal and a hot cup of coffee.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Sat 18 Oct 2003 04:58:49 PM CDT
